5 or 7 : Is the Choice So Important in Acceptability Judgment Testing?

Sanghoun Song,Eunjeong Oh 한국언어학회 2016 언어 Vol.41 No.3

Song, Sanghoun and Oh, Eunjeong. 2016. 5 or 7: Is the Choice So Important in Acceptability Judgment Testing? Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-3, 449-480. This article concerns whether two different numbers of points on a Likert scale task produces different results in acceptability judgment testing. The most popular numbers of points on response scales are 5 and 7, and there seems to be no clear consensus about which of the two is better and why. As the same goes for experimental syntax studies, the choice of the numbers of points on the scales still remains questionable, though the Likert scale task has been widely employed in acceptability judgment testing. The present study compares two experimental data sets using the same stimuli sentences but with different point scales (5 and 7). It includes 46,356 data points and 506 Korean native speakers participated in the study. The comparison between the 5- and 7-point scale data is made in terms of (a) variance of data points, (b) convergence between the linguists’ judgments and the participants’ judgments, and (c) response time. The comparative analysis reveals that the two different point scales do not yield significantly different results. Yet, it is also observed that there exist pros and cons to both sides. The 7-point scale is more demanding than the 5-point scale to the extent that the middle point is rather scarcely used. On the other hand, the 5-point scale is sloppier than the 7-point scale to the extent that the latter captures the variation in acceptability judgments across the participants slightly better. (Incheon National University & Sangmyung University)

Deproteinization with ZnSO4–Ba(OH)2 reduces the photodegradation of montelukast during plasma sample preparation for HPLC analysis

Shin, Eunjeong,Oh, Ju-Hee,Lee, Joo Hyun,Lee, Young-Joo Marcel Dekker 2016 JOURNAL OF LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY AND RELATED TECHN Vol.39 No.11

<P>Montelukast (MKT), a leukotriene receptor antagonist, degrades when it is exposed to light. The analysis of MKT content in blood plasma by high-pressure liquid chromatography requires several sample preparation steps including deproteinization. This study aimed to evaluate MKT photodegradation in blood plasma samples and optimize a deproteinization method to reduce MKT photodegradation, and thereby improve analytical quality. We evaluated the stability of MKT in water and plasma in real time using high-pressure liquid chromatography and optimized a sample deproteinization procedure by comparing the effectiveness of several deproteinization methods. When exposed to light, MKT photodegraded quickly. Although MKT photodegradation was slightly slower than that in water, a half portion (55%) of the MKT in plasma degraded within 2h when exposed to light. The rate of MKT photodegradation was dramatically reduced by sample deproteinization using ZnSO4-Ba(OH)(2), but it was accelerated by deproteinization through precipitation using methanol or acetonitrile. These results suggest that precautions should be taken when preparing plasma samples for the analysis of MKT, and that deproteinization of such samples using ZnSO4-Ba(OH)(2) can reduce the risk of analytical error arising from MKT photodegradation. [GRAPHICS] .</P>

Korean Speakers’ Aspectual Choice in English : Influence from Telicity, Transitivity, and Subject Animacy

Eunjeong Oh 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2017 언어정보 Vol.24 No.-

Semantic features, telicity, transitivity, subject animacy, have been argued to be intimately linked to grammatical aspect and thus, influence speakers’ choice between perfective and imperfective aspect. Precisely, the values of atelic, intransitive, and animate subject are argued to increase imperfective choices relative to the other value of that factor. The goal of this study is to examine Korean speakers’ sensitivity to such links between each of the three features and grammatical aspect in English. The results found that telicity and subject animacy, but not transitivity, significantly influence Korean speakers’ aspectual choices, and that telicity is a stronger predictor of Korean speakers’ choices than subject animacy. The unexpected result with transitivity was accounted for by invoking the inherent defect in the link between transitivity and grammatical aspect through telicity and the syntactically grounded nature of the link. We also considered and argued against two alternatives: frequency-based and L1-transfer based accounts. Each of the accounts is insufficient to account for the whole of the experimental data.

L1-Transfer in the Acquisition of English Unaccusativity by Korean Speakers

OH, Eunjeong 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2011 언어정보 Vol.12 No.-

The previous L2-studies on English unaccusativity found that overgeneration of passive unaccusatives is particularly prevalent among Korean speakers, which suggests that L1-transfer is operative in this domain. Nevertheless, the role and extent of L1-transfer hasn't received due attention. To contribute to the accurate characterization of the phenomenon, this paper examines the relevance of L1-transfer in this domain, using a passivization diagnostic. The findings of the study show that Korean speakers experienced more difficulties with particular subtypes of passive unaccusatives, whose Korean counterparts include either the morpheme ci- or consist of a verbal noun and hata. It is argued that transfer of a multi-function of the ci- and of unique properties of lexical passives in Korean are held responsible.

Transfer of Morphology Revisited

( Eunjeong Oh ) 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2009 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.44

This paper explores the question of what it is that transfers, in particular, the validity of transfer of morphology (Montrul 2000), which states that transfer is operative at the level of morphology, through the acquisition study on Korean Double Object (DO) construction by L1-English and L1-Japanese speakers. This paper counters a view of transfer of morphology given the results from the present study. This paper claims that the morphological marker itself does not have any effect and rather, morphology is implicated in the process of L1 transfer as an indicator of (in)comparability of structural properties between the L1 and target language.

Korean Speakers' Knowledge of the Role of the Cardinality of Objects in the Computation of Telicity in English

Eunjeong Oh 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2015 언어정보 Vol.21 No.-

This paper examines Korean speakers' knowledge of semantic computation of telicity in English. Precisely, it addresses the question of whether Korean learners are aware that telicity in English is encoded by the cardinality of objects. To this end, six different types of object NPs were used: eat an apple/the apple/two apples/a piece of cake/apples/cake. Only the first four objects of specified cardinality make a predicate telic. Results of a temporal modification test show that Korean learners have largely acquired that telicity in English relies on the cardinality of objects; crucially, they were able to accept the telic predicates but to reject the atelic predicates with the in X time adverbial. However, they failed to make the telic-atelic distinction regarding the event cancellation test, incorrectly accepting the telic predicates with the continuation denoting the cancelled event. It is argued that this fluctuation is attributable to L1 transfer. The transferred properties of Korean perfectives (i.e., partial completion interpretations) overrode their developing knowledge of telicity in English.

The Incompleteness Effect : Interplay between Semantic and Contextual Factors

Eunjeong Oh 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2014 언어정보 Vol.19 No.-

This experimental study compares event completion construals of change-of-state predicates in English by L1 English and L1 Korean speakers. The Incompleteness Effect (henceforth, IE) refers to the phenomenon in which the change-of-state predicates typically entailing event completion describe incomplete events. The semantic account for IE argues that IE arises only for accomplishments, leading to the division between accomplishments and achievements. IE is attested to in Korean but not in English. Given that difference, this paper is concerned with two questions: (1) whether Korean L1 speakers are aware that accomplishments are incompatible with incomplete events in English and (2) whether contextual factors other than the semantic one are relevant to IE. The results indicate that Korean speakers are insensitive to the absence of IE in English, which is best explained by L1 transfer. The results, moreover, showed that contextual factors are relevant to IE but in a selective way. Accomplishments but not achievements were influenced by contextual factors. Lastly, the results revealed there is an intricate interplay between semantic and contextual factors: the former plays a main role while the latter plays a supplementary role.

On Knowledge of the Incompleteness Effect in Korean L1 Acquisition

Eunjeong Oh 한국중원언어학회 2019 언어학연구 Vol.0 No.50

Not only fully-completed events, accomplishment predicates with incremental themes in Korean can also describe partially-completed events, which is called the Incompleteness Effect (in short, the IE). Given the phenomenon, this experimental study examined two questions with 16 L1-Korean adult and 47 L1-Korean child speakers: (1) whether the validity of the IE can be empirically verified and (2) when children acquire the IE. The results showed that the 7-year-olds and adults could reliably link accomplishments to incomplete events but the 5- and 6-year-olds could not. They demonstrated full completion bias. The results suggest that children do not seem to be fully aware of the IE until as late as 6 years of age. This study argues that the pattern of data presented by the younger children is best explained by the Subset Principle, which states that children start out with the most restricted grammar compatible with input unless there is evidence to the contrary (i.e., full completion interpretations).

The Role of Transfer in the Acquisition of Korean Locative Verbs by English and Japanese Speakers

Eunjeong Oh,Seok-Hoon You 한국영어학학회 2008 영어학연구 Vol.- No.26

This paper addresses the role of L1 transfer by examining the acquisition of Korean locative constructions by native speakers of English and Japanese, using a grammaticality judgment task. The acquisition of Korean locative verbs by these two language groups is particularly well-suited for investigating the role of L1 transfer since grammatical properties of locative verbs in Japanese and English are distinct. Locative verbs in Korean have properties essentially identical to the ones in Japanese. Of particular interest in the present study is the acquisition of fill- and pile-class locative verbs, where syntactic properties of Japanese and English diverge. An L1 transfer-based hypothesi predicts that with respect to the two classes, the two language groups would show distinct developmental paths. It was found that the prediction was partially borne out. For this unexpected result, we advance a developmental effect-based account. Additionally, we provide the results of a corpus-based study on Korean locative verbs and interpret the acquisition data in view of the findings of the corpus study.

An Experimental Study of English Perfective Interpretation by Korean Speakers

Eunjeong Oh 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2014 언어정보 Vol.18 No.-

English perfectives describe fully-completed events, whereas Korean perfectives describeboth partially- and fully-completed events. The capacity of perfectives to denotepartial completion interpretations is called the incompleteness effect which ariseonly for accomplishments with incremental themes. This paper examines Koreanspeakers' interpretations of English perfectives, precisely, whether they are ableto reject English perfectives with incomplete events, and whether their patternsvary across predicate types (accomplishments vs. achievements). The results showthat partially-completed events yield differences across predicate types. Unlikecontrols who rejected both predicates, Korean learners tended to rejectachievements but to accept accomplishments, as descriptions ofpartially-completed events. This paper explores the role of semantic and contextualfactors in interpreting response patterns found in the study.